Como se dice "sketchy"

So, we didn't end up going out cause it was raining and cold and I forgot I had turned in all my clothes, including pants, to laundry...so. Also, a group of us went to play vball and my papas team was there but he wasn't! So we waited until they were done to play, but they took the net with them! What kind of sports complex makes you bring your own net?! So we screwed around a little and it was raining lightly, so we left soon after. Lame. We are going to buy a net today for there and the beach! Ok, so since I didn't go out I was going to study for my text today, which I didnt, cause when I was walking out of my room, the family friend, Yomarra, was walking into her room which is right next door. So I asked her if she's ever eaten pancakes in this house and she said no, but she saw the family eating them once. I was like what? So we went into her room to chat. In all the 9 years shes been here, shes had the same corn flakes with luke warm milk and bananas or mosh every morning, sucky! Anyway, but that led to other things. She asked me if I had ever noticed that the family eats different things than us and I said no, and I asked if it was better or worse food and she said better! So they don't eat with us at breakfast or dinner, because they are eating at different times so we can't see they are eating better more varied food. Weird. For example, a bad example, but I get cornflakes and the 4 year old gets fruit loops...I want fruit loops, I'm going to ask. That's a bad example. Anyway, then I asked her what the father did for work since he nor anyone else would tell me, and she said he didn't have a job because he got fired for stealing from the government company he did work for! What the hell right?! So I'm like, where do they get their money? My theory is that they deal drugs, but I could be completely wrong. I only say that because the other night Yomarra was cooking me dinner and there was a roach on top of the fridge, so to make sure it was what I thought, I picked it up and smelled it, and sure enough, weed! Then the night before last I went to brush my teeth and someone was blazing because I could smell it so strong and the bathroom is by their side of the house. Sketch. She told me not to believe the dad, Anibal because he's a liar too. She said she moved out for 9 months because he was harassing her asking her always where she went, what was she doing, why, so it got to the point she moved out! It sucks because I actually liked the dad a lot since he was the only one who took interest in me learning spanish and he appeared to care, which I'm sure he does, but now I just look at him different. She also said that he says really vulgar things during lunch or dinner but they are things I don't learn in school so I wouldn't be able to pick up on it and it's bad because the little girl, Camila, picks up on it and gets in trouble. So, I've always felt like the family wasn't very welcoming but now I feel like they're sketchy! Except Amelia, she's really friendly and smily but never home! She's inited me to come out dancing before. Yomarra said the mom was weird because she's not very friendly, which I completely agree. The last girl here, one her last day, she told the mom she was leaving at 2 and the mom on purpose made lunch after 2 so that she didn't have to waste her food on the girl who was leaving! It sucks cause it seems like Yomarra and I are their major source of income yet they treat us as just that. Other families like worship their students, like they give them the best food and the most and they treat them like babies...not in mi casa! I'm a ghost, except to Yomarra and the 4 year old. Kinda sucks, cause everyone else has such welcoming families, but I can't complain too much cause I have a nice place, hot water and healthy food. Yomarra says that the reason she only comes to eat is cause the family is so weird and no one talks to her either! It's funny cause she said she has this conversation with each student who's lived here. I don't remember if there is anything else I needed to tell you all. So weird. Whatev, at least I have Yomarra, and the group of course! I told her that the mom told me that I have to buy my own water since the water there was only for lunch, as well as that I have to ask her for toliet paper and she was speechless. I don't remember if I told you all that, the first week I went into the kitchen to get water for my room and the mom came in and told me that I needed to buy my own! That's not right. Anyway, it's not all that bad, I mean I don't have a million bug bites. Ok, time for class.

Stuff

Hi all, not so sure what to tell ya, nothing new since last time I blogged. New pics up soon from Las Fuentes. I have been getting a little braver with telling my host mom what I want...for example I asked to have less food a few times...just too much fucking carbs here. Though some stuff is great and I want to learn to cook it and write a little cook book to take home. Jill gained 10lbs already, though the girl eats icecream probably 5 times a week and cookies and chips...I'm not that bad but nor have I weighed myself. YIKES. I just told my mom that we have snacks at school everyday and that I'm not that hungry at lunch for so much food, so she understands, and it's true, we do have snacks. Often tortillas, hard or soft, with beans, or avacadoes, or salsa, or cheese, or all the above, sometimes fruits, sometimes this weird hot chocolate with rice in it that looks like maggots swimming around, I can't look at it, nor really drink/eat it, freaks me out. That same rice was in my lunch the other day in the soup, but not only was it in the soup, it was in the meatballs so when you cut open a meatball it looks like there were maggots inside...these things I don't look at, and just eat it or else I'd flip the fuck out, pods galore. Last night I ate a fig, it was green and had a hairy center, which also freaked me out to the point of almost not eating it, it looked like a mouth with teeth all around the whole circle and inside lsfdjsldfjasfksdfjslfj I can't even handle thinking about it. Anyway, last night we had a speaker who fought as a guerilla in the repression here, it was pretty interesting, though you could tell he's got some post-traumatic stress issues. For those of you who don't know, there was a big civil war here not too long ago, which isn't taught in schools here even, which killed hundreds of thousands of indigenous people. The guerillas were on the side of the indigenous and fought against the army here, often other coutnries like the USA funded this and other countries gave arms...it's all pretty screwed up, I can't really explain it cause I get bored listening to history and stop paying attention and start day dreaming. Anyway, we've now watched 4 movies about the war, 2 of which were of good enough quality to not fall asleep, and had 2 speakers about it, all really boring to me. What else, I've begun to teach the birdie to say my name, though I have to do it at odd times so no one sees me repeating my name over and over to a freakin parrot. It has the smallest cage, I will take a picture of Paco for you all. Apparently they found him injured one day and have been taking care of him since. Though I really want to buy him a bigger cage. Maybe I will. Or maybe I'll take him back to the USA! Ha! Anyway, trying to teach him to say my name. That would be awesome. Today after the speaker Jill, Greg, Crystal and I are going to the Complejo Deportivo to play volleyball with my papa and his friends, should be fun! Each week he gives me shit for not coming on wednesday so now we're going and he's going to regret it! I'm excited. Jill and I layed out sunday at the school, and did a little peppering, in our bikinis, I'm pretty sure Tio, the old old man who lives here pooped his pants. He came outside to sunbathe as usual but this time there were two girls in bikinis! Haha. He tries talking to everyone, and he's a great old man, but I most of the time have no idea what he is saying cause his words slur, so it's hard, but I try. I think he taught Paco how to say Paco. I guess if it starts raining, no vball, and it's thundering now so not a good sign. I think I mentioned that some people have bed bugs right? Jill showed me hers today, she probably has over 100, all around her stomach and back and arms and legs...she itches constantly! It's so bad, we went to Hyper (owned by walmart) and bought dog and cat flee spray, raid, tylenol pm, and calamine for her yesterday...and still new bites today! If I believed in god, I'd thank him for my kick ass house. Ok, conference time. Adios. Guess I had more to say than I thought.

DIPLOMA!

Not So Sure

I'm kinda doubting I'll be fluent in Spanish by the end of 6 months.

Potential Week Off Map

http://maps.google.es/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=es&msa=0&msid=110851477483061420351.0004531d5e5705ea935ac&ll=16.240606,-89.740448&spn=4.576799,9.580078&z=7

Las Georginas!

The hot springs were great and it was such a fun time! 7 of us went, jill, amy, ruchi, nicci, greg, jake, and myself. The rest of the group came too but they left around 430 back to Xela. So, you take a chicken bus (old US school bus) to Zunil, ~30minutes, 5Q, then you get to Zunil and hop into a pickup truck which takes you up to the springs. That was an interesting ride, the roads are super small and windy and the drivers drive like nuts so often you feel like the truck may tip over. SCARY. but it was fun. I'll post pics later of the place but there are 4 or so pools, one of them is off more secluded and right next to our bungalows...so we got there, checked in to our bunglows, which were quite interesting...and made some lunch inbetween the bungalows cause we brought bread from the bake shop, avacadoes, cheese and meat and chips...yum! We rarely get to eat sandwiches here, so it was nice. Had a few brewskies then off to the pool next to us. It was perfect, and if you got near the spring that water was super hot. It looked like if it were to rain then there would be a waterfall into the pool, which could have been awesome but it didnt. Then we got out and ventured to the other pools where everyone else was, locals, foreigners, all in their trajes de bano (bathing suits). Theres a restaurant there too which we had a few beers in and played 2 drinking games just cause we had nothing better to do. More swimming, the pools up top were way hotter so we didnt stay in long. We decided as it got later that we really needed to improve on our drinking so we opened up the bottle of rum and passed it around taking a shot every time it came by you...so Ruchi ended up puking in Jills shoe and all over the bathroom, Greg and I hoisted Jill up on a cliff to check out the glowing door in the side of the mountain which obviously was the door to the 8 of hearts, and when Jill disappeared behind it we freaked out, screamed, and jumped back into the springs, not to mention we were all butt naked since it was pitch dark and you couldnt see anything, asking and answering questions no one should, had a moment of confession with jill, stared at the recta (jill kept calling the star right above us the recta because recto means straight) so we could all see the same shooting star while we were on our backs in the middle of the street, spilled some sort of fire goo on the wood table outside and watched it burn cause it was awesome looking, took pictures of a melted candle and a lily in a tecate bottle, ate way too many chips, came back to find jake had made the fire in his bungalow so jill and i decided wed stay there too since we knew ruchi and amy didnt make one, therefore jake went and stole their wood too, slept like shit cause jill stole all the covers, then when we came back to see the crazy door in the hill, just happened to see dads headlamp in the bottom of the pool! I freaked out, recovered it thinking dads going to be sooo pissed, to find that its waterproof to 1 meter. Nice purchase pops! So, everything is a-ok. The door to the 8 of hearts ended up being the sign by the pool that said stuff like wear bathing suits, no drinks or food or pets...pretty funny. Had breakfast, and now I'm here at the school again waiting for jill to come here to so we can lay out..cause it's sunny and hot!

I hope we have beets for lunch, and I hope that every day. I used to hate beets but here they mix them with tomatoes and onions and put, guess, lime all over it, and it's delicious! yum. We're all really excited because Jills birthday is next saturday and we're spending the weekend at the coast, on the beach in a house! Its going to be so much fun. The town in Tilapia, I think, and apparently the undertow is so bad its dangerous to swim, but we'll see...the hotel next door has a pool so that will be great. I'm going to get a pinata for Jills bday night! But heat and bathing suits and sun and sand and swimming = perfect. What else...this place is so beautiful, I wish you all could come visit. We were joking the other day cause Guatemala is fertile in all areas...girls get pregnant here from kissing at 15, and that's normal and no one cares. I still can't get over that there arent any animals here, just birds, dogs, and a few cats...apparently other places have more, like panthers and shit. 3 of the other kids in the program booked their week off trip to CUBA, Eric, Ruchi, and Amy...I don't really understand why they'd want to go there except just because they can. I would much rather scuba dive and sit on a beach for a week, which is exactly the plan. Jill's friend Michelle, her parents have a timeshare in Belize near San Pedro so shes going to go there during the week off and Jill and I are going to meet her there...we're working on what we're going to do to get there and what to see on the way. Right now we're thinking of taking a bus to Antigua, staying a night, taking a bus to Rio Dulce and floating the river to the coast for a day to Livingston, taking a boat to Placencia, perhaps a bus to Belize City then a flight or something to San Pedro. Then on the way back take a flight from San Pedro to Tikal, flight from Tikal to Guatemala City then a bus back! Sounds great eh? Anyway, I'm on Amy's computer and she's here now so I need to go...que les vaya bien!

Week in Review

This week sucked, obviously from my other post you can tell...the only time I cried, but I teard up the next couple days too...today I was fine, solely because I gave up on asking why why why. But, class was cut short today because there is a bake shop that is only open on tuesdays and fridays so all of us and our teachers went there after the break so then there wasnt anymore class today! Then, this afternoon we learn how to make chocolate covered bananas...Im sure it will be sooooo hard to do, dipping bananas in chocolate sure sounds like a task. But, yummy! Yesterday we had our first official salsa class! It was great, I love it! Though it kinda sucks cause there are so many girls in the group so its hard to partner up. But, so fun! After that everyone went home for dinner but Jill and I decided to stay in town, cause its just annoying to walk home 15 min then have dinner, then walk back to go out...so we tried out this mediterranean restaurant which was awesome! Got tapas and a bottle of vino, it was delicious, pricy but great and worth the experience. Then we met up with friends and had a liter of beer each at one place, then went to Rhumba, where people usually salsa, and they had this free salsa lesson but it wasnt really a lesson because they were awesome and moving all around all crazy, it was like line dancing but salsa, pretty interesting, the dj forced us to come out there and try it, so we probably looked retarded and served as entertainment for the locals. Bought 2 bottles of rum, took like 4 shots each, had a beer, danced more when real music came on and did some salsaing, fun dancing night, then we went to another bar, el cuartito, and had another shot, of tequila, barf, then headed on home...all in all, fun night, and this morning most of us who went out all contemplated calling in sick for school, but didnt. I bet they think foreigners are alcoholics. My teacher said people dont keep booze in the home, its only for celebrations...but im sure that varies from house to house and age. Oh and thanks for trying to write spanish in your comments, but i end up not reading it because i dont feel like translating! haha. darcy, that was funny though, thanks. que mas........we had a conference the other day, on guatemalan independence, so boring. History and politics are really not my thing, because afterwards we had a discussion and everyone had something to say, they were well informed in tons of historical people, events, and had smart shit to say, and im just like, wow, im either really dumb or just have absolutely no desire to know any of this shit, most likely a combo. anyway, i cant wait for the conferences to not be about history or people or politics...health por favor, then ill have some stuff to say. i wonder if one day i will care about politics...everyone says i will and i should and its bad i dont because it affects me, which i understand, but i dont care. maybe its just because people always argue about politics and i, being nonconfrontational, decided to never know what they were talking about so i didnt ever have to argue about it. and, its not like i can do shit about anything regarding politics, except vote, and im uninformed, so i dont vote. whatev. Went to the mall the other day to do some shopping...wanted a couple tshirts cause i realized i only brought like black and white and gray and had no colors! so we went and had SUBWAY for lunch, which kicked ass cause i havent had a sandwich since before i left and ranch dressing, yum! then shopped around a bit and bought a couple shirts for like $10 each! Anytime i get sad im just going to go eat subway and shop...haha, and probably play video games cause they have an arcade there. tomorrow we go to the hot springs! 7 of us are renting a bungalow and staying the night, for $10 a person and you can get in the springs all night! so today after the bake shop we went and stocked up on booze and snacks for that, im excited. last weekend wasnt much of a relaxing weekend cause we got up so early ever day, so this should be great. the hot springs are heated by the volcano! scary! like in dantes peak!!!! and well get to sleep in! lindsay ill get more videos for ya, sorry, havent been doing much exciting, what do you all want to see on video? taking special requests. ive begun buying presants for christmas! its hard though because its all pretty eclectic, indigenous type stuff so i dont know how much everyone will actually like their gifts...but ill figure it out. i think ive also decided that when i get back, ill work as a translator in a hospital or something so i can keep my spanish up but also be in a medical setting until i go to pa school, if that ever happens. anyway, now im rambling, more sunday when i get back! love you all!